


emeralds sparkling, bleeding life into the cold

by CassandrasDreamworld



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, First Meetings, Shifters, Snow Is Evil, Yennefer has dual cutlasses, ambigious plot, ice even more so, this doesn't actually add much to the story but it's important to me that yall know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 15:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30041124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandrasDreamworld/pseuds/CassandrasDreamworld
Summary: Yennefer travels to Skellige in search of a Djinn.She does not find the Djinn but something else, even more unexpected in the frozen mountains of Ard Skellig.
Relationships: (implied/future relationship), Pavetta/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #08





	emeralds sparkling, bleeding life into the cold

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like it! I did a lot of worldbuilding for a lot of things that did not get mentioned here. At All. Just now this is a whole canon divergenced universe because I can do what I want.

Yennefer wants to be anywhere else but here. It’s cold and wet and she cannot even use her magic to keep her warm or keep the snow out of her face out of fear for discovery by the blasted druids.

She imagined a trip to Skellige quite differently, namely somewhere warm with a nice ale and good food and not out in the middle of what feels like a giant snowstorm. It’s not actually a snowstorm or she would not even be out here and personally, she does not want to get acquainted with an actual Skelligan snowstorm and hopes that this will get done soon so she can leave this damned frozen wasteland.

With a wet squelch her boot sinks into a depp patch of mud and snow and she fights the urge to scream. 

If it weren’t for her sources and their credibility she would not do this, would not even _think_ about doing this at all but here she is now. On a mountain in the middle of _fucking_ Skellige in heavy snow trying to finight a blastd djinn. It seems like an incredibly upside down deja vú, there has even been a lake involved.

Amos var Ypsis and his accursed ship, couldn’t he have let himself be transported onto a nice sunny island and not this cold and awful mountaintop.

It doesn’t help that she keeps spying something moving out of the corner of her eyes, and through the snow she cannot tell if it is actually real or if it is just her imagination. She doesn’t _feel_ followed, doesn’t feel worried either which is certainly the weirdest part of it.

She hopes whatever it is- _if_ this is something- does not actually come after her. It’s not that Yennefer is _helpless_ without her magic, far from it even, her dual cutlasses strapped by her side. It would be just a terrible annoyance to get blood on her here, since she cannot quite easily get rid of it without her magic and the prospect to also having to get _down_ the mountain again with blood splatters all over her is not one that she enjoys.

Yennefer stops thinking about it and starts concentrating on her steps up the not-path. Her foot that sunk in is freezing but her _everything_ is freezing as well, so she just tries to bear it and reach her destination. Hopefully without turning into an icicle.

If she sees that she will not make it, she _will_ say fuck it and use her magic but that also means that she will probably not be able to come back here and freezing cold and snow or no, she _wants_ to reach her goal. 

Wants or not cannot prepare her for the actual hike and how it is, neither does it when she steps on what seems like solid ground but turns out to be a pane of _ice_.

“ _Motherfuck-_ ”

With a cut off curse she falls hard and due to the tilt of the path she starts to slide down the mountain, not managing to grab anything to hold onto. She tries to stop her descent with her feet but finds no purchase. Her magic rises inside of her and she’s already in the process of forming a spell-

Then, all of a sudden she stops. Something has grabbed her from the back and stopped her impromptu slide. Whatever it is, drags her a couple of feet away before letting her go.

When Yennefer turns she is face to face with an extremely big and large _snow leopard_. Her hands immediately fly to her cutlasses but she hesitates.

It did just save her and it didn’t look as if it were ready to pounce.

The opposite even.

Confused, she watches as it sits down elegantly in the snow and just _watches_ her. Yennefer stands up on shaking legs and pats the snow off her clothes while the leopard only sits on it’s spot, like in waiting. Maybe it’s some kind of magical animal or familiar, it certainly does not seem wild or aggressive. 

“What do you want?” Yennefer asks coldy, or tries to but she doesn’t think she managed to hide the curiosity in her voice. 

As if the creature understood her and maybe it _did_ , it stands up and turns, walking a few feet and then looking over its shoulder, waiting. It obviously wants her to follow it.

With a wistful glance she lookd up the mountain. It's getting dark and she lost a good amount of height which she does not think she would manage to catch up, nevermind doing what she has to and then getting back down again. She does _not_ much fancy staying the night on this miserably cold mountain.

Sighing she turns to follow it, it does seem to lead her down as well which is at least something positive about this situation.

They trek through the snow silently, the only noise being Yennefer’s footsteps and the howling of the wind.

After a while the descent gets easier and easier and the falling snow subsides, the snow laying on the ground getting less deep. Then suddenly the leopard changes direction and she finds herself on flat terrain. The mountain to her side looks like a chunk of it has just been taken out and a wall of stone towers above. 

And there, nestled at the end of it, nearly blending in with the stone and trees around it stands a hut that the leopard is leading her to.

Nearly there she spots something by the cliff, something white and moving, another snow leopard maybe. Coming closer she sees that it was a lot smaller than the one that led her here and she watches how it pounces on the bigger one.

They devolve into a little brawl but she can see that both of them are pulling their punches and when they stop the bigger one steps before the smaller one, _protectively_. Maybe a mother and her cub? She seems to motions the smaller one, the cub, in the direction of the house.

She watches amused as it runs to it and actually opens the door with its head and goes inside, leaving the door open for them.

Weary, she enters the cabin behind the leopard and tenses when she feels magic rising from the leopard. It rises and morphs into a young woman right before her eyes and then plucks a thick robe from the wardrobe, draping it haphazardly around herself.

She turns and her piercing green eyes pin Yennefer into place and she says, “Please do come in.” 

Curious she follows the woman, and she cannot shake the feeling that she is familiar somehow.

Yennefer steps into what seems to be the living room, fire stocked high and crackling inside the fireplace. The woman sits down on an armchair, motioning her to sit down in the one opposite of her.

The fire illuminates the woman’s face and gives her a kind of halo around her blonde, nearly white hair. As she sits in the chair, regal in her posture and presence in the rooms it hits her out of the blue who sits before her.

She seems to notice that too and smiles, “I see you’ve recognized me.”

Yennefer nods, and crosses her arms before her chest, “A dead princess.”

“Not so dead, as someone people would believe.” She doesn’t smile now, and leans forward. “I also know who you are, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

Yennefer looks at her and her surety and wonders not only how she is alive but also about the ability to _shift_. “I am. And I don’t think you would have let me here just for a laugh.”

At that _Pavetta_ of Cintra, former Princess and presumed dead for over a decade shifts and calls a name that Yennefer now knows to be _Cirilla_ of Cintra, the lost heir to the kingdom and thought to have died by her mother’s side. 

She hears running footsteps and is greeted to a wild child nearly crashing into her mother’s arms and grins up at her with a toothy grin, hair sticking up in every direction. Pavetta runs a hand through her daughter's hair and looks at Yennefer.

“I want you to bring us to Geralt of Rivia, so he can finally take responsibility and train her like destiny has intended.”


End file.
